eBay Terapeak Sourcing Insights Not Working?

Liz Morton
Liz Morton


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UPDATE:

It appears that there is a minimum sales threshold of $1000 in the last 90 days for sellers to use this tool. Harry Temkin did not mention this in the demo, saying only that the tool will be available for Basic store subscriptions and above. There was also no mention of it in any of the announcements or detailed pages about the Spring Seller Update.

However, sellers who are unable to access the tool report getting this message when trying to click on the "search and browse" tab.  I also see it when trying to view data for international eBay sites - so currently it appears you can only get data for eBay sites and categories where you have $1000+ in sales in a 90 day period.


One of several new tools announced in the eBay Spring 2021 Seller Update is Terapeak Sourcing Insights.  This tool will be available for eBay sellers with a Basic or higher store subscription and is presumably meant to compliment the existing Terapeak Product Research tool that is already available to these sellers.

Here's what eBay says about the new tool

The new Terapeak Sourcing Insights tool helps you identify the top categories to sell in, and find top-selling products in those categories to help you source your inventory.

And here's VP of Seller Experience Harry Temkin giving a demo in the February Seller Check-In


I've seen reports from several sellers who are having difficulty accessing this new tool, saying they get a message that they haven't sold anything in the last 90 days even though they have.

This seller commented on the demo video posted on the eBay for Business Facebook page, but didn't get a response.

Another seller in the eBay community voiced the same frustrations, saying they have contacted support multiple times and have been told it is a "known issue" that has been reported to the technical department.

In working with a different seller on an unrelated project, I noticed they too had this message under Terapeak Sourcing Insights, when in fact they had almost 300 orders in the last 90 days, so I set out to investigate.

Here's what most sellers seem to be seeing

And here's what the same page looks like in Harry's demo:


What Are Saved Categories?

There are no help pages or how to guides available for this tool yet. The view defaults to "saved categories" but nothing on this page gives sellers any idea what that means or how to "save" categories for which they wish to view insights.

"Categories that you sell in will appear here, once you've made a sale" leads sellers to think there is nothing they need to do and they should expect categories to auto-populate in this section once sales are made, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Harry seems to have completely forgotten this step in his demo as well!

I resorted to the old stand by of trial and error to see if I could make it work.

Clicking on the Search & Browse tab brings up a search box or browse by category option.

Harry's demo makes it seem like sellers should be able to select any category on eBay, but the seller in this example sells boat parts exclusively listed in eBay Motors categories and Motors was the only category available to them.

Seller version
Demo version

It's not clear to me if this is working as intended or not.  I would hope that this tool would give insight into all categories, as shown in the demo, as it would be more helpful for sellers to be able to have insight into opportunities to expand beyond their existing categories.

I'll update if I get a better answer on this one - but for now it appears it may be limited to categories you are already selling in, at least in the one case I've personally seen.


Once you search or browse to narrow down to a specific sub-category, you then get the option to "save this category"

If you go back to the Saved Categories tab, you should see information populating for any of the categories you selected.

I'm planning on doing a full rundown in the near future, but wanted to get this out first for any sellers struggling to get started with Terapeak Insights.

Hopefully Harry Temkin and his team will release an in depth guide and some help page documentation soon too.

Terapeak Sourcing Insights can be found in Seller Hub under the research tab or by going to https://www.ebay.com/sh/research/sourcing-insights

If the above steps still don't work for you, let me know in the comments below!


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Liz Morton is a 17 year ecommerce pro turned indie investigative journalist providing ad-free deep dives on eBay, Amazon, Etsy & more, championing sellers & advocating for corporate accountability.


Recent Comments
Avatar PlaceholderMarty_J9 hours ago
Was just checking to see if it would post without creating an account but….
eBay seller since 2022
Just started selling about a year and half ago

800 items sold 99.7 feedback

Recently I went away for family things for 30 days set my acct to be away … got back with items not received cases opened

I wasn’t able to revise existing listings post new listings OR refund the buyer from my eBay funds …

The items were caught up in recent wild fires but ended up being delivered late. I had to beg the buyer to let me pay them off of eBay to close the case because it was on hold and I wasn’t able to refund them from my eBay acct etc…. So luckily they obliged and I did … but ever since then my acct must be strikes as high risk because funds have been on hold 3 days after delivery since then indefinitely might I add… I get the run around everytime etc etc FINALLY I got someone saying it’s temporary it’ll be back to normal etc. these r all reps from escalated departments… one lady told me that with my history and feedback I’ve proved beyond doubt that I’m reliable seller and shouldn’t be on hold she put in for a appeal never heard back got the run around for another few months… they keep telling me I’ve been chosen for the new update they r rolling out total BS … do you believe that sellers will stay on eBay with these holds ? No they will simply go to another platform … they r 100% making money on the holds and use any reasoning to tell you basically no and keep profiting…. The get around is creating a new acct… these cases were closed without eBay having to step in and might I add I lost $$ and its been truly frustrating esp since I’ve built the acct up but I know I can do it again.. when they tell me its going to happen to all accts I just mention how my brother just opened one n now has immediate payments they don’t know what to say I don’t think they really even know.,, its sad n scummy but I see a class action lawsuit coming honestly ! I don’t know💬 if I forgot anything but well written thanks for the information. Have a great one!
Avatar PlaceholderJkvinyl317 hours ago
As many have already quoted - us sellers now can not charge for packaging. I will be £500 a year out of pocket.
Avatar PlaceholderBanned in ChatYesterday
Should have renamed it D+Marketplace.